


Spread the Love

by AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)



Category: The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster
Genre: F/M, Gen, Poetry, alternating anapestic tetrameter and anapestic trimeter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 09:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11895156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Ordinance 175389-J: It shall be unlawful, illegal, and unethical to think, think of thinking, surmise, presume, reason, meditate, or speculate while in the Doldrums.





	Spread the Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [primeideal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/gifts).



> This is a sequel of sorts to the novel. I'm basing the setting on my own high school, so I suppose I'm transposing the novel's setting to forty years after its publication, but oh well.
> 
> Thanks to the_rck for betaing!

Milo thought she was pretty, Adele so like Rhyme,  
and that’s where I suppose it began.  
But for someone like Milo, Adele hadn’t time—  
though she did think him a handsome man.

He did not—yes, it must be confessed—know so much  
about people as numbers or words.  
And thus, music: he thought, ‘a new song—that will touch  
Adele’s heart and her soul. I’ll compose it in thirds.’

“You loser, get lost,” said Adele when she found  
it was Milo who’d drawn her sunflowers:  
the very same jackass whose attempt at sweet sound  
had so little romantical powers.

“Don’t jump to Conclusions,” he said with a laugh  
and the capital letter quite clear.

The next day, they partnered in math class to graph  
the quadratic equations she feared.  
“Take it easy,” said Milo; “it’s honestly half  
as hard as it seems—watch me here.”

Adele took his help, though she wasn’t convinced,  
and she asked “What’s the point? Sky high grades  
aren’t needed in soccer games.” Boredom evinced,  
she went on, “I don’t care.”  
“This will aid

you,” said Milo, “or somebody else—it’s all in-  
terconnected, you see. If you frown,  
no one’s happy—you know how it’s harder to win  
a big game when your teammate is down?”

“I would never have noticed,” Adele said, quite sour.

“How about you then think along these  
lines,” said Milo. “Once up, it goes down.” (She looked dour.)  
“Some quadratic equations are keys

to the way the ball flies when you kick it on goal.”

—And the first tiny interested spark  
started lighting her eyes. “I could better control—”  
She looked down at his graph. “—my ball’s arc?”

“Well, with practice and skill.” Milo shrugged. “And you know  
as well—better—than I really could  
if that’s true. And allegro, adagio—to show  
works better than telling. You should,

I’d think, know that already,” he added aloud.  
“Some people learn best when they read;  
others hear, or do, or teach to a crowd.  
It depends on your personal need.”

“Why don’t _you_ teach the class, if you’re really so smart?”  
groused Margaret, whose desk was beside  
where Adele idly doodled small hearts on her chart.

And Adele did not say ‘Don’t be snide,’

though she thought it—but Margaret’s worst quarter-mile time  
kept in pace with Adele’s nearly best,  
and one stands with one’s team, even when they are slime.  
She did say “Oh, just give it a rest,”

but she looked at both, Margaret and Milo alike.

Margaret shrugged and went back to her graph. Her assigned  
partner, Kate, who was no soccer star  
but still on the team, shot a Look right behind  
Margaret’s back. Kate’s wide Looks repertoire

were a legend of sorts; Adele thought this one meant—  
directed at Milo, at least,  
or any who dared tempt a teammate—‘Get bent!’  
And today, with the sun in the east,

she’d agree; she would say it the same. But today,  
with the sun in the west—and she _knew_  
this could help with her soccer, improve her game play—  
was she sure? What on earth should she do?

Paralyzing, that thought; Adele almost ignored  
Milo graphing away—not at all,  
though she acted as though she was thoroughly bored.  
It didn’t make sense: add a ball?

After math came her lunch; meanwhile Milo had class,  
so Adele took her food to where Kate  
sat with Margaret and soccer teammates en masse.  
“It’s bizarre,” said Adele to her plate,

“but it’s almost like some math is useful to learn.  
Almost fun. I am almost intrigued.”

“Don’t you want to be _best_?” Margaret asked. “You won’t earn  
all your way to the top while fatigued

from dealing with _boys_!” And Kate nodded; Cee grinned.

“It’s not _like_ that,” Adele almost found herself pleading.  
“We need to have high grades; we _know_  
it’s important to be always exceeding.”

“Yeah?” said Margaret sullenly. “So?”

And Adele, leaving lunch where it lay, headed out;  
the usual camaraderie: off?  
A section of hallway was full, a clear hangout  
for those who at lunchtime were scoffed

at by likes of Adele. No one noted her here,  
except to move out of her way.  
She pulled up some tile—her thoughts _had_ to come clear!  
But everything seemed pretty gray.

If she listened to teammates instead of to Milo,  
her grades really wouldn’t improve.  
She needed some reason to try.  
But her _team_ —if they all disapproved—

Between classes Adele reached her locker; she turned  
the numbers and opened its door.  
The drawings of sunflowers returned,  
and a melody noted 4/4.

She glanced through the lyrics—eight puns to the line—  
but there was far too much gray: couldn’t laugh.  
Ordinance 175389-  
J seemed _quite_ absurd—so had that graph.

After school there was practice, begun with a run,  
and, as always, the track brought to life  
Adele’s heart. No worrying what should she have done,  
and no pesky homework, no strife.

Just the rhythm of cleats on the grass of the field,  
and a ball to get into the goal.  
Truly no wonder why it always appealed.  
Moving body so spoke to her soul.

At the end of the practice that evening, Adele  
drove home, thinking. A quadratic graph—  
No, that wasn’t it—Milo _had_ tried to tell  
her—and honestly Margaret would laugh—

It was all about how one could use what one learned.  
And even if not, for the love  
of learning itself, one’d leave no stone unturned—  
So why did stars sparkle above?

The next day in math, Adele said, “I’m sorry I  
have some awful teammates. But you know  
our fine teachers don’t ever give reasons for _why_  
we should learn this.”  
Said Milo, “Yeah? So?

Knowing the Rhyme and the Reason behind  
the world’s working’s enough, I would think.”

“That’s illegal in Doldrums, may I remind  
you,” Adele said, recalling the ink  
on the note in her locker—Milo’s work, if unsigned.

“Unethical,” Milo agreed with a wink.


End file.
